9 months after several years of trying and failing to keep my mom alive; my last bout of homelessness ending when she was left crippled by a hospital mentally and physically and largely abandoned by her family and friends. Some were confounded by how deeply she had been wronged by establishment machinery, some were offended that thoughts and prayers were not actually solving any of her problems and some wanted nothing to do with her predicament unless it might magically be made an opportunity for themselves to somehow benefit. I gave her as much of my time as possible, to extents where I had none left to spare for indulging the fantasies of others, prompting everyone that I know and have known to abandon me in turn. Roughly (and a very rough indeed) 9 months since being long enough to grow an entire life, but one where I do not seem to be existing anymore. I do not think I am suicidal and I do not feel that I am homicidal, and yet I see nothing of the world around me but causes to burn, causes purposed entirely with the devaluing of life.
I do not want to kill anybody but I want to burn this government to the ground. I want to burn the healthcare establishment, the pharmaceutical and insurance industries and all the rest of Wall Street to the ground. I want to burn every fiefdom of law enforcement to the ground. I want to burn Hollywood to the ground, for if the masses were provided with fewer escapes from problem-solving then perhaps more issues from the private to the societal would be reconciled and dealt with. Like thoughts and prayers art does not actually save lives or solve any problems, and nothing but lazy ego states otherwise. Perhaps more and more might realize they do have the means to help others even when powerless to help themselves, if only they were not so preoccupied with granting positive reinforcement to those already possessing more opportunities.
When someone like Bill Maher criticizes persons protesting for abortion rights at the homes of judges, he misses the detail of those judges decidedly not representing the general consensus of the voting public, and so his projection of thoughts and feelings upon others safeguards the entitlements of those judges over the greater population, just as the projection of the thoughts and feelings by those judges will make life more difficult for Maher’s own audience. But I can look at this and see how he is likely acting out himself, over the loss of his good friend Hugh Hefner. Long-term friendships are only made more impossible within any creative industry, where anyone unwilling to take blame or credit for the works of others is wholly unwelcome. Nobody else seems to have pinpointed on that specifically personal loss as explanation for Maher’s surging further and farther rightward, but coping with personal loss myself I can understand his dawning realization in its wake, of exhaustively losing faith in more and more of the world he sees. Or realizing the faith was never as strengthened as he had wanted to believe. Unlike Maher, I am not imposing my will upon others, much less defending anything which may endanger lives.
Likewise, there is a meme floating around exclaiming how rape existed prior to suggestive clothing, so that it has nothing to do with one’s chosen costuming and everything to do with the rapist. But people were killing each other long before guns existed too, yet we still must ban gun ownership, to protect as many people as possible from the least among us losing control of their own derangements. If a woman elects to stroll her neighborhood in the nude, there is responsibility on everyone she encounters to not use or abuse her, absolutely. But nobody gets to push all responsibility in their lives entirely onto others. I try desperately to avoid endangering anybody purposefully or inadvertently. It’s actually not that difficult to manage. Granted my younger sister is making up right now for an entire world stuck up its own ass in a number of ways, but neither one of us have any reason to keep this mutual assistance going much longer, not when we are both left so depleted by said world stuck up its own ass like so.
The right to choose for your actions to have no consequences is not actually a thing that nature makes possible.
On the subject of what people can make manifest, real equality is not the sharing of privileges, it’s the sharing of burdens. And sex without consequence is a fantasy perpetuated by the predominance of pregnancies executed as matters of convenience. If others find value in a given life, none have the right to stop them from doing so. With abortion such the hot topic again, let’s make donating fertilized eggs as easy as donating plasma. Autonomy must only ever end when life is endangered regardless of circumstance, because the comfort of nobody matters more than the well-being of anyone anywhere. Good people save lives, where indulged egoist fantasies justify exceptions. Even in cases of rape, abortion is hardly a revenge against the attacker considering they will likely never learn of the matter.
In terms of abortions, if the pregnancy will kill the host, or if the fetus is an uncomfortable reminder of a rapist or if the host’s preferred schedule is simply unwilling or unable to carry a night of carelessness to full term, that’s alright. But why is killing the only alternative? If others are willing and able to find purpose in that life, why prevent them from doing so? We have the technology, and potential networks where safe and fastly extraction can happen with no lingering strings attached legally or financially. Is this removal of the quote unquote parasite out of sight and out of mind, though allowed to live nonetheless, not redistribution of wealth to those in need?
I do not care about the thoughts and feelings of others. I do not care about the thoughts and feelings of others not because I am an egoist, but because I am not an egoist. I believe that everyone can think and feel whatever they care to. In accordance with my principles and convictions, autonomy and self-determination should only ever stop when human life is endangered, no matter the life, because no life matters less than the convenience of anybody, anywhere. If we were to propose that abortion should be legal, but only in cases where it might be proven that the pregnancy resulted from rape, or where the pregnancy itself poses grave medical risk to the life of the host body, we would learn uproariously fast how so many more abortions are in fact matters of personal convenience hiding behind the tragedy of others. In their own respective and self-serving ways both sides of the debate are more willing to endanger the future of select others than they are in trying to save everybody. Why is nobody’s first impulse to save everybody?
If your home were on fire, you would hope the firefighters would not pause to ask who you voted for or what church you attend. You probably would not wish for them to finish watching whatever TV show to have captured them, or for them to finish a twitter rant about how the billionaires could help you so much more. We learn that churches are not any building or its respective leader, but the mass of bodies. Companies have thrived after removing their boards of directors and public trading status from the stock exchange. Churches and businesses both tend to be more effective without middlemen, or whatever thoughts and feelings not directly solving any problems. People could theoretically govern themselves just as effectively, but we allow governments into our lives because on some level we do know most people are incapable of morality, incapable of any sense of personal responsibility. If resources were managed individually, the bullies would win the day as they always do when faced only with equally self-serving cowards prioritizing thoughts and feelings over any life or death measure.
Maybe fascism is not the refusal to find value in a given life, or the refusal to allow a given life to meet their potential on equal terms. Maybe fascism is preventing others from providing assistance, insisting they must also deny that life’s equality. And because it alleviates personal responsibility, people will always accept whichever variety most appealing to them personally, as no fascist actually considers themselves or their icons to be fascists. Supremacists of any stripe never actually explain how they are superior, only how others are supposedly inferior. Women view their unwanted fetuses with the exact same disdain as IDF goons view mourners of assassinated journalists. Egoism is always the imposing of private will upon others, and the apex zenith form of imposing any private will and thus negating autonomy is the termination of life, no matter how guiltless the justifications. Having thine will be done in a society already full of fascists but thanks for contributing.
The impossible standards of a culture possessing no actual standards, the lone constant in the thoughts and feelings of its citizenry is the love given toward efforts at avoiding personal responsibility. Democracies in this world are actually rare, where one citizen equals one vote, without intermediary political parties to shield their lack of principles or convictions behind. Its maintenance depends only on personal responsibility, so democracies are rare because so too is personal responsibility. The history of civilization is the repetitive story of people blaming others for their own misgivings while taking credit for the successes of others. They only have the potential to govern themselves, allowing state to delegate pathways for blame and credit in the absence of personal responsibility. Industry as well delegates pathways for blame and credit in the absence of personal responsibility, by normalizing the misconception that culture is never a thing to be shared, but only ever regarded for profit. So when and where the customer is always right, then their very identity as informed by culture is never a thing to be freely shared, but only ever regarded for enrichment. Artificial cultures are less about innovation and more about emulation anyways.
I oppose lethal force and the unnatural ending of life in all circumstances beyond suicide, as ending life is the most dire measure of ending freedoms of choice, and no such right exists ethically or morally for anyone to finitely snuff out the free will of anyone but oneself. I need no church, state or industry to inform me otherwise.
Any moral good is defined by the relinquishing of ego. On the other hand, the prioritization of ego is where all evil arrives from. The broader debate of our society being perpetually the matter of collectivism versus competition – authoritarianism vs libertarianism, is always a debate where neither side embraces self-sacrifice.
That said, no value must be given to the thoughts or feelings of others, as each and every one of us possesses our very own to fret over. If you hate being used or abused by others, then at all costs refrain from using or abusing others. If you loathe being lied to, being cheated or stolen from, then do not ever dare to lie, cheat or steal from others, no matter who they are. And never make allowances for when select others choose to lie, cheat or steal, no matter how much you like that celebrity, that political leader or religious icon. Feed no ego. We do not have to love one another, but that is no invitation to view others as competition or threats or sex-toys or parasites, as those others might be every bit as autonomous as you yourself truly are, with other roles in mind. I am as eager to help anyone as I am eager to destroy all that they believe in, as the fantasies they indulge are what manifested the problems they must cope with. For the rest of my life I will never know a greater cause for myself than what I tried to do for my mom. Nothing anyone believes in, not one of their own thoughts or feelings will ever matter more, but it won’t stop me from trying still to help. I won’t add to anyone’s problems. I will evidently go without more than anyone I have ever known in my life is willing to part with, up to and including my life. Nobody will require encouragement to argue over credit or blame after I am gone for good, because everyone’s personal fantasy indulged is all that anyone cares for, leaving all that I say and do altogether insignificant in the grand scheme.
I made a lifetime of mistakes to get to where I am in the here and now, enough to fill three graves already. None left a portion of themselves with me, but rather did each one leave this world with a portion of myself, of who I could have been and of who I should have been.
But you know what? I never defended the idea of anyone anywhere having less resources or opportunities than me.